‘’Mom, Kenny isn’t sharing. You should put him into a time-out.”

Whoa. No.

I regularly see articles and memes that celebrate raising our daughters into bossy women. Although it’s of the times to empower women and support each other in being our truest selves without shame, I just can’t get behind embracing bossy. I can’t nurture bossy. I loathe bossy. Since bossiness is a personality trait that I’ve always disliked, I tend to keep my distance from those with rigid opinions who walk around with a false sense of authority.

My daughter is a wonderful, smart, imaginative, and thoughtful girl, with a streak of bossiness that shines every so often. In those bossy moments, my knee-jerk reaction is to help her identify and correct her attitude. So, I do. “Worry about yourself,” is a common phrase I hear dropped by parents when their children act bossy or tattle. I’m confident that I have dropped that line, too.

Although “bossy” is often attributed to females, I don’t discriminate with that word in my household. I have a wonderful head-strong little boy, too. Our family motto is “Don’t be a dick,” and if my children are trying to boss each other around, they are being dick-ish.

I understand that there is worry that if little girls are reprimanded for being bossy that they will lose their voice and ability to speak up for themselves. However, their bossy tendencies shouldn’t have to be silenced, either. They should just be shaped and channeled appropriately.

When I see Wall Street’s “Fearless Girl” statue staring down the Charging Bull, I take away strength and resilience from the piece rather than bossiness.

Is it better to be bossy or to be kind? If one is being bossy, truly bossy, they are interfering with others’ free will and not valuing others as equals. That does not allow room for kindness. Kindness matters. My proudest moments with my children are when they are kind.

My husband and I have broken down our parenting priorities into three legs: nurturing and inspiring independence, work ethic, and compassion. Although bossiness might neatly fit under the work ethic category, it contradicts the kindness of compassion.

Bossiness has always struck me as not only being ill-mannered, but a sign of insecurity. Some people find self-importance through a need to control others. A healthy way to inspire self-confidence is to encourage independence. I love the way my children’s faces light up when they master tasks and tricks independently. With each independent milestone they undertake, they become that much closer to becoming self-sufficient individuals. Then we, as parents, can step back and take credit for raising strong, capable children.

The bossy component is often paired with the inability to listen. It is so important to nurture listening skills in our little ones. Listening, turn-taking, and general empathetic skills don’t seem to come naturally and demand parental coaching. I have found that educated, intellectual individuals typically possess great listening skills and grace. They are enthusiastic and willing to acquire more knowledge from a variety of sources, whereas a bossy individual tends to act as though information is finite.

Even a stopped clock is right twice a day, and answers can be found in unlikely places.

I’ve also seen articles and memes that contrast the difference between bosses and leaders. I believe it’s important to distinguish one from the other. I want my children to develop leadership skills rather than fall back on bossy instincts. Through listening to others, advocating, and presenting thoughtfully developed ideas, one can inspire rather than simply be bossy. I’d much rather that my children develop into positive role models, than to dominate. To offer guidance, than to push. To be approachable and collected, than to be imperiously overbearing. Although the differences between being bossy and strong aren’t always clear, I believe that my husband and I have the right idea in striving against encouraging our children to fulfill dick-ish behaviors.

I Won't Raise my Daughter to be Bossy, and You Can't Make Me was originally published in Thrive Global on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

When I was pregnant with my first child, I decided to breastfeed. It was free, it was natural, it was portable, plentiful, and a no-brainer. Plus, friends of mine clued me into not only its health benefits for the child, but that it was an awesome natural liposuction regimen for the mother. I was sold.

I would grace the book racks at thrift stores as a pregnant woman, and stock up on baby-rearing books that have mostly remained unread and lonely in my bookcase. I couldn’t understand why there were books on breastfeeding. Multiple books, with multiple chapters. Wasn’t breastfeeding a basic practice among mothers that was comprised of a single step: lift your hungry baby to your breast? It reminds me of when I dated a man who subscribed to a running magazine. Both running and breastfeeding seem to be such primitive practices and pertinent acts of survival that require little-to-no study. I found the abundance of books on breastfeeding to be puzzling.

However, my daughter arrived a month early, and I had to hit the ground running.

She didn’t latch. Not for eight whole weeks. I didn’t know that could be an issue. My sweet, tiny, premature infant lacked the natural instincts to feed. And I, a mother and special education teacher, struggled to teach the very first practice in life and couldn’t break it down any further than gently rubbing her face on my nipple.

I had an intense, high maintenance relationship with a breast pump. My husband and I purchased it immediately after I was discharged from the hospital. “Eight to twelve times a day,” the doctor said. I set an alarm on the noon-3–6–9 cycle, and eight times a day I would coach her to breastfeed (aka rub her face on my nipples), bottle-feed her, pump for twenty minutes, and wash the pump pieces. I have memories of feeling like a cow on a feeding schedule. Once, I played a song on YouTube as I pumped and noticed that the back-beat was identical to the rhythmic whir of the pump. From thenceforth, that song was all I heard with each milking.

Then one day, she latched. Miraculously, she latched. It was on her terms, and though I don’t know her reasons, she latched. I got a raise in motherhood, and was given a decrease in my workload. Never again, did I exhaustedly knock over a container of freshly squeezed me milk, only to watch it spill to the floor and be consumed by the family dog.

I had spent my whole life having lazy breasts who sat latent in bras and were only expected to fill sweaters nicely. And now, they had a sense of purpose. Intellectually, I knew what their function was. They give women a very defining characteristic that places us in the mammalia class. But in the beginning, my new lactating lifestyle was weird to me. Feeding my child with my breasts was about as awkward as feeding her with my elbows.

The Lactation consultant described mamma’s milk to be a precious liquid gold. I discovered that Lactation consultants can be some of the oddest, most intense people. Its value may be less in my household, for my daughter would allow it to dribble out of the corner of her mouth, and my breasts would drip at the most inopportune times. I learned of the feeling of fire ants inhabiting my breasts during the periods of let-down. My breasts would inefficiently spritz my body with milk as I’d exit a hot shower. They didn’t discriminate between my crying infant and my sister-in-law’s whimpering puppy when trickling milk to offer comfort.

When the milk first came in, I experienced engorgement. All of the discomfort and swelling was a poor trade-off for my breast’s increase in size. The milk was backed up and I couldn’t get it to release through my nipples. I felt like a sucker who should have picked up one of those breastfeeding books from the thrift store during my pregnancy. In a pinch, I perused online Lactation threads and tried all of the remedies that made sense to me. I iced. I heated. I massaged. And when the obvious treatments were of no help, I opened my mind. I found a single blurb that recommended that I wrap my breasts in cabbage. Taking the ‘what the hell’ attitude, I decided to give it a go. After I let my nipples marinade in a veggie wrap, I watched my breasts express drops of milky goodness into my pump.

My daughter weaned herself at five-and-a-half months. She cried and was downright offended when I’d offer my breast to her. I was ready to welcome formula into my daughter’s life.

I immediately became pregnant after that with my son. Whereas my daughter didn’t take to my breast at first, my son was determined to find and utilize it. It was though he was studying up on it for nine months and was determined to excel at the top of his class. He was rooting for it in the air when he was brought to me for the first time. I spent most of his first year of life tethered to my couch. He would dabble in different techniques like a cultured wine connoisseur. He would pounce on them in National Geographic wildlife style. While gaining sustenance from one, he would beat the ever-loving snot out of the other. Sometimes, he would rhythmically teeter from one to the other like a metronome. He refused to be bottle-fed early on and gave me a crash course in attachment parenting. After twenty-five months of breastfeeding, he weaned himself just in time for my third child to take over.

I could write books on my experiences with breastfeeding, now. However, I envision them collecting dust on the shelves of thrift stores.

Breastfeeding Confessions of an Awkward Mom was originally published in Thrive Global on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.